Layers of Us (Second Generation Book 2)

Chapter 13

MILES

“Miles, is that you?” I turned around to see my Aunt Britt heading this direction. She starts to wrap her arms around Granger and then she sees Bev who is still holding Peyton and she lets out the same gasp that Bev did earlier.

“Who is that?” She looks in my direction, “Miles, is that your baby?”

“Hey, Aunt Britt. Um, yeah that’s my daughter Peyton. Surprise, I guess.”

“Granger,” she hisses his name and turns in his direction, “did you know about this?”

“Don’t you get mad at me, woman. Yeah, I found out about Miles and Peyton from a check that Sadie ran on him, but it was not my business to say anything. He needs to be the person to step up and share his news with the family.”

“As much as I want to ask a million questions, I would prefer that we get her inside and maybe look at fixing her a bottle? She is started to root a bit and I’m way past my breastfeeding years.”

I groan, “I didn’t need to think about that.”

“Shut up. Come inside, maybe grab her stuff.”

I nodded and went back to the truck with Granger. He grabbed his duffle bag and turned off his truck while I grabbed her diaper bag and my cell phone, I’d get everything else later. Hell, I don’t even know where I am staying tonight. I pause before walking into the home that I walked away from so many years ago. Granger turns around and raises his eyebrows. “What are you waiting for, kid?”

“I don’t know. It is just weird.”

“Shit’s going good as far as I can tell.”

“Bev slapped me.”

A smile spread across his face and he let out a small laugh, “I know, that was great.”

“Fucker.”

We made our way to the living room and I took a seat on the love seat across from the couch where Bev and Britt were sitting. Walker came back into the room and I could feel his glare on me. I knew that whatever we discussed right here was not going to be enough to answer all of the questions that he had. My guess is a conversation with him will be more yelling and less questions and talking.

“Um, where are the kids?”

“At school.” Walker answers quickly and with a harshness to his voice. Bev looks over at him with a softness to her eyes, one that I don’t deserve.”

“Graham and Iris are at school. Iris will be home in probably an hour or so, but Graham has baseball practice so it’ll be late.”

“Oh, he’s playing baseball?”

“Yep, he’s really good too, playing on varsity this year.”

“Which you would know if…” Walker begins to talk, but I cut him off.

‘Yeah, if I was around or called or whatever, I got it, okay?”

“Do you though? Do you get it? Because you just fucking show up without so much as a text message to let us know you’re here. We’re supposed to what, hug you and jump up and down with excitement?”

‘No, I didn’t exactly expect that, but I also didn’t totally feel like I had a choice in the matter.” I look over at Granger.

“I told you that you should tell them.”

“Yeah and can we talk about how long you knew where he was and that he had a baby? What the hell, Granger?”

“Oh my god, it’s true!” I turn around and groan when I see Brooke and Brielle walk in the room followed closely by Mitch, Brielle’s husband.